Sorry for the melodramatic title. I just found out that the job+housing I thought was a sure bet I was going to get at my school fell through. Now it's two-ish weeks until graduation and I don't have a job or a place to live. It's my own darn fault, but I was so sure that they would hire me again since I worked for them before and they seemed to love me.

Time to move on.

Any seasoned New Yorkers have any advice for finding a job and a pronto place to live? I don't have any family to stay with (in NYC or outside) so that's not an option. In short, I won't be officially granted my degree until October, pending papers I have to finish over the summer. It would be best to remain in the city so I can meet with my professors and have access to campus libraries and such. I'm pretty willing to work most anywhere--my degree is in economics but the only relevant work experience I have is office work and research.

No suggestions are fine too. I mostly just wanted to kvetch. I know I'm lucky in so many ways...but man, graduating (or pseudo graduating) sort of stinks right now.

Oh man, that sucks, and sounds really scary. Do you at least have a little to live on right now?

I live in Prospect Heights, which is pretty inexpensive. I share an apartment with 3 people and we each pay 500.00, plus utilities which are not much. It is not the greatest apartment (it's been broken in to before we moved here) and I'm not in love with the neighborhood, but I know the apartment next to mine is empty. It would be 2,000 total I'm assuming, so you'd need to find 3 roommates. I will message you my landlord (also no prize) number if you want.

As for jobs, that's a bit harder. Try looking at urbaninterns.com for temporary summer work + paid internships- maybe a paid internship would be a good place to start if you don't have experience. I would start applying for jobs in your field at any rate, and get another job at the same time- if you have any experience in retail or food service that shouldn't be too hard. My roommate works for a company called 1 on 1 Tutors, it's through the dept. of education and it pays I think, 15.00 an hour. With three students that's decent extra income.

I had a job fall through on me a few years ago. i ended up getting a much better job in about 3 months. It's going to be okay.

Thanks for the info stars! Urbaninterns looks like a great resource. I'm slowly starting to apply to a bunch of things, a lot of them part time, so I'm hopeful about a job. I'm interested in food sustainability, policy, public health & nutrition. It will be difficult to find a job in that field right away with little experience, so I'll probably try to cobble together some decent part time work wherever I can get it and then volunteer/intern in my field.

Goodfoodjobs.com is a really great resource, by the way, if anyone else is interested in the same type of work.

I'm worried about being able to afford all the initial fees for renting or even subletting an apartment. My school has housing that students can rent for the summer...the cost is quite a bit higher than what I could probably find for a room in an apartment in brooklyn or queens, but I wouldn't have to pay them at all until the end of June. I'll probably end up paying $800-1000 more for the room on campus, but that's probably my only option if I wouldn't be able to afford to pay the first month's rent for an apartment upfront, right?

Oh man, personally I say never fall for campus housing in NYC. It's always a lot more than an apartment in the same area with less space and a lot of rules. I lived on our for a semester before moving (I went to Parsons.) The only way it'd be worth that much is if you can truly afford that much, it has workrooms/security that you really value, and you are totally 100% out of options. Plus, come August you'll need a place anyway, why not get it set up before you're super busy? Try craigslist, crash with friends, on facebook I always see a lot of people needing roommates. If a place isn't exactly what you want, negotiate a 6 months lease- some will even do 3.

If you can put down 1700 for a month's rent (this was our on-campus housing price), you can find a way to get the deposit down on your own space! You just have to stop thinking expensive neighborhoods and be really proactive about calling people looking to rent rooms/sublet/etc. If you move in with someone on say May 12, they may have already covered rent that month. Ask if you can get them the rent + security after you get your first paycheck (Obviously that would be within the same month). I did that when I moved here, and nobody cared because I paid them cash.

Oh, and if you're crashing with friends for a bit, Manhattan Mini Storage is not badly priced. If you don't have tons of stuff you can get the smallest option and it's something like 70 dollars. I didn't even fill it up moving out of the dorms. (Plus they help you move your shiitake.)

I feel for you, I had a friend in a similar situation who stayed with me (way too long) but he found a decent place uptown (118th) and doesn't pay much more than me. You can do it!